‘Kill Him’: Ananta makes the impossible possible again

On Tuesday, my wife complained I hadn't spent much quality time with her during the Eid holidays. So, she demanded that I make it up to her before heading back to Dhaka. In all honesty, nothing could be a better pastime than to go to the theatre and enjoy an AJ-starrer movie with loved ones.

But my home district, Bagerhat, currently has no active cinema hall. So, we travelled 31 kilometres from our home to Khulna, only to find out that no hall was screening the extravagant action hero's latest masterpiece, 'Kill Him' there.

The nearest theatre in the region to run the movie was Monihar, the country's largest cinema hall, situated in Jashore. But Jashore was another 60 kilometres away from Khulna.

One definitely wouldn't travel all this distance to watch a Bangla movie. Or so you would think!

At this point, my wife pointed out that "Oshombhob ke shombhob korai Anantar kaj [it's Ananta's job to make impossible possible]," adding that Ananta never falls short of going the extra mile to make Barsha feel like Deepika Padukone (I mean, special).

Heck, Ananta had once even pulled his heart out from his chest to show his wife – outperforming all the wonders Emperor Shah Jahan and many other men from history books ever did for their darlings.

Now it was my turn to prove my mettle, and I was left with no other choice. You see, Ananta has not just set the bar high but taken it to infinity.

Once we reached Jashore's Monihar, I am happy to report, Kill Him is a movie well worth the time, money and everything else that went into our mission to watch it in the theatres.

Staying loyal to the title, Ananta starts killing off everyone in his path and asks the gravedigger to dig one more grave. Such thoughtfulness is what we crave from our heroes: You can't just go about making a mess, you need to clean it up as well.

Soon, we get to the obligatory scene designed to question people's dress sense. AJ – being a garment tycoon and CIP (commercially important person) – seems to hold exclusive rights to do so.

But this time, the Bangladeshi idol famous for his low-cut shirts does not preach to women to not wear "indecent clothes." He instead asks a male friend wearing "feminine clothes" if he has become "half ladies" – an astute reflection of the kind of social consciousness and cultural appropriation one can expect from Kill Him.

Moreover, there's the ever-curious moral compass: any crime you commit can be justified if you are doing it for your family.

To me, the most striking aspect is the use of 'obhiman' (a Bangla word with no English equivalent) in a new light. Barsha's character Zinia had 'obhiman' with her elder brother, so she studied so hard that only "harbard" could harbour her talent.

This is a life lesson for all of us who tend to vent out every frustration on social media. If we convert our feelings to fuel for energy and work really hard, we too could go places extremely difficult to pronounce.

But the way Zinia shouts "Kill him!" made me extremely proud of Bangladeshi heroines, as they have come a long way. There was a time when Jaya Ahsan would cry "Maaaaro..." at Shakib Khan – the now famous scene in "Purnodoirgho Prem Kahini 2" – but the fact that Barsha is doing something similar to Ananta in English testifies that both Bangla cinema and Bangla heroines have now gone international.

Meanwhile, not everything about the movie felt satisfactory to me. There was a huge missed opportunity after the announcement of a new character called Tiger. 

After what we (haven't yet) witnessed in the Bollywood sensation Pathaan, I was genuinely rooting for an Ananta Jalil-Salman Khan face-off. (For those who don't know, Tiger is Salman's character in the YRF Spy Universe).

Ananta is like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the film; and if Dr Jekyll is reflected through the character Prince, it's one Salman Chowdhury to fill in the shoes of Mr Hyde. Also in several action scenes, the said Salman Chowdhury has a striking resemblance – from mannerisms to wardrobe – with Salman Khan's Tiger. 

Meanwhile, Ananta rips off the entirety of the film's basic concept from the 2010 Bollywood flick Prince, in which Vivek Oberoi played the title role. 

Having said that, it's the naming of the protagonist in Kill Him which has been a real masterstroke. Ananta and Co. knew there would be controversy surrounding the movie being a "copy" of Prince. As usual, they declined the claim. 

But in a shocking plot twist that would bring James Hadley Chase to his knees, they still attributed the name Prince to Ananta's character, and in the process developed a Brechtian alienation effect to its truest sense. 

This is how Kill Him successfully maintains the legacy Ananta has created over the years. So much so that, Barsha jumps up in joy, "Yes, we are succeed."

That they surely are. But it doesn't necessarily mean they have to blow the final whistle already. So, even though the film's duration runs out, we can let out a sigh of relief that Kill Him is "to be continue."